The Impulsive Kitchen

  Seasons Greetings from Mike and Clark ! First a  mea culpa  if you did not receive our 2022 Holiday letter. It was only after we started getting a fair number of them returned to us that we realized that the city, state and zip code were missing from some of the mailing labels we had printed. “UNABLE TO DELIVER” snarled the hand-stamped response from the USPS. But by then daffodils were starting to bloom so we abandoned a resend effort in favor of correcting the problem this holiday season. If you get this, we’ve succeeded! Our 2023 began with the completion of a 6-month exterior renovation of our Richmond home, which we and our housemates and co-owners David & Cheryl Lederle-Ensign refer to as “3 Chimneys.” We were very pleased with the work and had only a few items remaining on the punch list when we made our final payment in late February. A mere ten days later, however, our contractor, Fabling Built, abruptly ceased operations leaving some 80 other projec...

  CHICKEN MEATBALL and ORZO SOUP Happy 2023! It's the start of the New Year again, and we're trying to reduce our caloric intake and our waistlines.  A lot happened last year. We sold our Falls Church, VA house, moved to Richmond, VA. We have had a large Richmond house restored and it's lovely, and we love our new town. All these changes meant added stress, a disregard of our exercise routines, comfort eating and drinking more than we should.  I have only gained a few pounds but it's probably due not only to extra fat, but to loss of muscle mass as well.  So - new year, new us!  I found out my company subsidizes WeightWatchers, and the monthly subscription is only about $8.  I have had a lot of fun looking at different recipes on their app/website to try to get some good ideas for meals and snacks. This recipe was adapted from the website damneddelicious.net, and it's really WW friendly.  One serving is only 3 points.  I made a few changes, mainly...

  Cheesy Ham & Potato CRACK Casserole This recipe was assembled by scouring the internet and taking bits of recipes from here and there.  It's got that salty, spicy, somewhat sweet (because ham), cheesy "umami", and it actually has a lot of vegetables in it - you could almost call it a healthy choice, if you ignore the (rather a lot) of sodium in this dish.  This casserole is the one that hits all those pleasure centers. I am going to say this serves 6 hungry adults (with bread and a veggie side dish), or 8 if you have children and adults. I have taken this to church potlucks, and watched several kids devour it. The key is to cut your veggies small enough that they are not getting big pieces of carrot, onion and celery, but just small bits of it. I prefer celery and carrots prepared that way, too. I found a recipe that used the French's Onion Rings, and tried it and it was - um, bland, so that's why I added the salt, pepper and parmesan cheese on top. Parmes...

  Merry Christmas, from Mike and Clark!                 What a weird year it’s been!   We felt like March and April of this year, post-lockdown felt like an entire year, and then we had another 8 months of fun and fabulousness to go!   All in all, we’re doing pretty well, in Covid-19 adjusted terms. The big news is that in January, we purchased a house in Richmond, VA with our dear friends David & Cheryl Lederle-Ensign.   It will be our eventual retirement destination (yes, were getting to be that old).   The work on the house began in February, then came to an abrupt stop in March when the City of Richmond went on lockdown.   The house was not in a usable condition - no working bathrooms, no kitchen, items that are rather crucial to successful occupancy!  It's a big house with a huge front porch and two spacious master-suites upstairs.  The lower level has been open...

  Clark's somewhat lighter Sweet Potato Casserole This was inspired by a recipe that Tyler Florence did years ago on the Food Channel.  I basically took his idea and altered a traditional Southern sweet potato casserole recipe.  The roasted banana is the 'secret' ingredient and allows you to back off the the amount of sugar in the recipe.  Most traditional Sweet Potato recipes have way too much sugar and fat in them - so many are more of a dessert dish than a side dish. I halved the amount of butter and am using only about 1/3 of the sugar.  You will not miss it, it's still a rich dish with a ton of spice and flavor.  I hope you like it! Pre-heat oven to 400°F, bake, 2 – 3 large  sweet potatoes , Line a cookie sheet with foil, and bake the potatoes until a knife inserted into the middle meets no resistance, usually takes 45  minutes.  During the last 10 minutes add 1 banana. Remove from the oven and allow to cool so that the potatoes and bana...

So, I made this today on quarantine day number - umm - whatever.  My partner had a bad day teleworking, and both of us needed some culinary comfort.  I had roasted a chicken on Sunday, and I had noodles leftover from something I had cooked last week, so I thought - CHICKEN CRACK CASSEROLE!! I literally made this up as a went along.  I used a recipe on the French's site as a - very rough - guide.  This is fairly typical of the casseroles I grew up with - except this one has a ton of flavor!  You can add whatever vegetables you want to this, just make sure that they are all cooked.  That's one mistake our Mothers made with these recipes, raw vegetables always cook at different rates, so if you throw a bunch of uncooked vegetables into the mix, some will be cooked, but you will still have some uncooked raw onion, or whatever in the casserole - which aren't always good thing, are they, Dawn? PREHEAT oven to 350 degree s In a large bowl ADD and WHISK ...

I have a FAGOR Multicooker that I got last year when my 10 year old electric pressure cooker died. I love it, it does so much so well.  This is one of the first recipes I adapted for it.  It's not traditional Bolognese sauce because a) it uses ground turkey rather than ground beef, and because b) there's no milk in it (bleah, why is that a thing?). I have been using ground turkey for a while now in recipes that call for ground beef, because one of our good friends developed an allergy to beef, pork and lamb (all mammals, really, he has to carry an Epi-pen with him - Alpha Gal Sensitivity - google it), and we eat together a lot.  Cooks note: I am lazy and use the food processor to chop all the vegetables, a mom that I gave this to, said that she loves this recipe and that her kids don't necessarily know they are eating yucky vegetables! Chop everything finely, but take care that you don't puree them.  Enjoy! Set the Multicooker to SAUTE ADD : 1 T...

I became fascinated with the concept of overnight oats when everyone else did - 2015-ish when every cooking blog had how-to's about them.  I settled on about three recipes that we really liked and I used them - some were kind of gross and too rich and sweet for breakfast, i.e. peanut butter and chocolate overnight oats - 'nuff said.  I tweaked the original recipes and came up with a version that is much lower in calories than the original versions, and works with the 5:2 diet plan we're trying to make a go of again.  Overnight oats are easy to assemble the night before - or actually several nights before, I've made them as far as about 5 days in advance and they tasted fine. Also with these tweaks they only set you back about 180 kcals. 1/3 cup quick-cooking oatmeal 1 TBLS dry instant milk (Carnation was what I used) 1 TBLS Chia Seeds 1 TBLS dried fruit 1/4 tsp spice or flavoring 2 pkts Splenda (optional, but it really helps, and I don't find Splenda's ...

Hey - it's been a minute since my last post, but things are still going well.  I hope to post more in the coming days, weeks, months and years. I have mentioned before that I have a kitchen garden that I try growing organic vegetables, I have had some luck with it.  Okra is something that grows very well in the $#!%%y mid-Atlantic clay that I have in my Falls Church backyard. Okra also freezes very well, so I have a freezer section that is full of 2 cup (5 oz) portions of okra. Full disclosure - I LOVE OKRA, and I grew up in the deep South of the US where it is cooked a lot.  Some are put off by the 'slimy' quality that okra can have.  Having grown up with it I don't mind it - I like how it thickens anything it's added to, but some find it off-putting.  You can cut some of this by par-boiling okra for 3 minutes by itself before you add it to anything, but, to me, you may as well just go and make something else. AmIRight? This 5-2 diet friendly soup is ...

Great title - heh? So, this recipe was adapted from a recipe for "Slimming Asparagus Soup" that was included in the "Super Shred Diet" book that was all the rage a couple years ago.  It's a terrible name. I never made this when we were on the Shred plan, but I tried this version recently and wanted to share - it's better than I thought it would be. 1 lb fresh asparagus 2 cups of water 1 TBLS of vegetarian stock base 2 potatoes, peeled and diced into a 1/2 inch dice 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning 2 TBLS olive or coconut oil 1 small onion, diced 1 shallot diced 4 cloves garlic, minced (to measure about 2 tsps) 1 tsp salt 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper 3 cups water or vegetable stock Trim the woody stems from the asparagus and set aside (you'll need them shortly). Cut the remaining asparagus into 1 inch pieces and set aside. In a big sauce pan, bring the water, stock base, potatoes and the woody asparagus ends to a simmer, cover and cook until the po...

·      Long time no post, it's been almost two years!  Tempus sure does fugit, don't it!   This is a vegan chili recipe, that I adapted from one on Epicurious.  One thing that they don't specify in the other recipe is about the bulgar. Bulgar is a wheat groat that has been boiled and dried, it's used a lot in middle eastern and east European dishes.  It has a sort of meat-like quality when it's added to this and other dishes, but if you cook it too long, it gets a bit mealy.  So, cook the 1/2 cup of bulgar, according to the package directions, then just add it at the end.  Bulgar is usually found in the grocery aisle with wild rice, quinoa, spelt, millet and other weird grains.  I am not vegan, but I am really making a concerted effort to consume less meat in my diet.  I am a committed omnivore. Don't judge. Anyway, I really like this.  The barbeque sauce adds a nice sweetness.     ...